My dad's siblings and Bangalore holidays

My name is Arkalgud Hiriyanniya Kesari Prasad
My father's name is Arkalgud Chaluvaiya Hiriyanniya
My grandfather's name is Arkalgud Narasimhaiya Chaluvaiya
My great grandfather's name is Arkalgud Chandrasekhar Narasimhaiya.

That's as far back as I can go.

So here's the family on my dad's side.

Chaluvaiya and his wife Gowramma.They had seven sons and three daughters.

Chaluvaiya was a Chartered Accountant and worked in various places including Mysore ( Secretary, Krishnarajendra Mills) and at MISL ( Mysore Iron & Steel)Bhadravathi before finally settling down in Gavipuram, Basavangudi after retirement and starting his own CA firm A.N.Chaluvaiya & Co.

Their children:-


Kanteeravaswamy married Kamala.They had no children.They lived in Gavipuram till the early 60s and later moved to their own house " Cheluvu" in Vyalikaval.Kanteeravaswamy was a Cost & Works Accountant and worked in ITL,Malleswaram.
Kanteerava & Kamala were inveterate travellers.Today's backpackers were not a patch on them.They would suddenly decide that they wanted to see the sunset in Agumbe and catch the next bus.Or if their bus or train was passing through a particular town or city and they liked what they saw, they would get down and explore the place before moving on to the next destination.They travelled all over India in this fashion.
Kanteerava had an abiding passion in the stock market at a time when the stock market fever was yet to catch on.
Kanteerava died in 1983 and Kamala bravely lived on till she too passed away in 2003.
Both of them were a model couple on how to live in this world and depart in a dignified manner and still live eternally in our hearts.
Kamala , before she died, willed all her wealth in stocks and shares to her nieces and nephews on her side and on her husband's side and the administration of the estate was left to Canara Bank , Bangalore. Canara Bank did a meticulous job in contacting each one of the cousins.A complete list of all the shares with the market value as on date was sent and consent was obtained from every one to dispose of the shares and distribute the money equally. Truly a great couple !!!

Hiriyanniya ( my dad) was the next. He married Rajamani ( my mom) and their children are Kesari Prasad ( me), Ramadevi( Rummy) and Sandhya.

Satyanarayana ( Satya)married Susheela and their children are Nalini and Badri Prasad.Satya worked with his dad for some time in A.N.Chaluvaiya & Co in Bangalore and then moved on to Shahabad ( Gulbarga Dist) to work with ACC.They moved back to Bangalore after Satya's retirement in 1984 and settled down in Jayanagar 4th Block.
Nalini was and is a maths wizard.She was called junior Shakuntala Devi because she could do mental multiplication, division, square root, square--- you name it--- of humungous numbers in a matter of seconds.She actually held demonstrations of her prowess on a couple of occasions. The worst part was that she did very badly in maths in her school because she would simply write the answer without going through the detailed steps and her teachers thought she was cheating!!
Badri was so named because he was born after Satya and Susheela went on a pilgrimage to Badrinath.

Lakshmidevamma ( fondly called Akka) married K.V.Chandrasekhar.Chandrasekhar was a tall man with a fine athletic figure---- no wonder, since he played cricket for Mysore State. He was a Civil Contractor and was engaged in the business of building houses, mainly in the up and coming Jayanagar area in Bangalore.

Their children are Omprakash ( a doctor settled in USA for the last 33 years), Suresh ( now in Sydney), Sheela and Latha ( both in Bangalore).

Akka was fondly called the family reporter by my mom since she used to write fairly long letters detailing the happenings within the family and also upcoming events.
( Latha has taken after her mom in this respect--- keep it up, Latha).

Subrahmanya ( Chubbadi to all of us) married Indira
and their children are Rajani, Nandini and Anil.Chubbadi and Indira stayed in Gavipuram before moving to their own home in Hanumanthnagar in 1969.

Sethuram was next.He married Seetha.They had no children.Sethuram worked in FCI( Fertilizer Corporation of India),Chembur and Sindri before eventually moving on to Namrup in Assam and then settling down in Bangalore after retirement.

Sharadamba ( Chambi to all of us) married M.S.Krishnaswamy and their children are Srinivas ( Seeni) and Jyotsna ( Josi). MSK worked for Esso in Madras before moving on to Mumbai and working with HPCL .They stayed for a brief while in Sringeri after MSK's retirement before eventually settling down in the USA with their children who had gone there earlier.MSK passed away in USA and Chambi now stays with Jyotsna and her family.
Chambi is a great devotee of Sringeri Sharadamba and there is something mystical about her.She travels constantly all over the world and is much in demand in places like Bahrain.More about Chambi later.

Lalithamba ( Lambi to all of us) married H.G.Prasanna and their children are Pradeep and Deepali.Prasanna was employed with IOC and then ONGC and they stayed in Barauni, Sibsagar,Baroda and finally Dehradun before eventually settling down in Bangalore after Prasanna's retirement.

Ananthaswamy ( Anti) married Padma and their children are Ravi and Gowri.Anti worked in BALCO,Korba for along time before his untimely demise in 1987.

Ramaswamy ( Papanni to all of us) married Girija and their children are Tejaswini and Shalini.Papanni and Girija now stay in Gavipuram,Bangalore.

Among all the 10 children, Kanteerava was the strict one even though he had his own sense of humour.The others were hilarious and great fun to be with.They were always cracking jokes and always treated their nephews and nieces as adults.

They all loved playing cards ( a game called 28 among the brothers and Rummy among the men and women).In fact, during family weddings ( and even distantly related weddings), Sethuram and Satya used to requisition a room in the wedding hall just for playing cards and these were all-night sessions.On most occasions, it really didn't matter to them as to who was getting married to whom so long as they got the coffee, thindis, lunch and dinner coming in steadily.Sethuram and Satya used to first make friends with the cook and lay out the instructions on what food item should be sent up at what time.

They were also very good at relating their experiences and even the most minor incident would be magnified in full humorous detail. Satya was particularly known for relating such stories with a straight face while others were cracking up all around him.

Family get-togethers were occasions when we children got to know about the escapades of the brothers.Chubbadi's daughter Rajani is the acknowledged expert in recounting these stories and our cousin's get-togethers have now become occasions where Rajju is the star attraction with her wonderful mimicry and way of recounting these stories.

Here are just a couple of them and I'm hoping that Rajju will add more as she reads this blog.In fact, this is a request to everyone who reads this blog to add their comments so that everyone else gets a fuller picture.

The 7 brothers were perpetually hungry and were always waiting for a big festival or special occasion when their mother made nice thindis.One such occasion was when Chandrasekhar had got engaged to marry Akka.Since he was also in Bangalore, he would come visiting regularly to see Akka and they would sit by themselves in the front room and chat ( under the gaze of about 10 pairs of prying eyes).Anyway, one of these occasions happened to be on Gowri & Ganesh Habbi and Ajji had made Chakli, kodbale, thengolu etc etc.The boys were strictly told that these would be distributed to them only after Chandrasekhar departed.

Chandrasekhar came and a plateful of these thindis were laid before him.He was chatting with Akka not knowing that there were many pairs of eyes watching---- not the pair of Akka and Chandrasekhar, but the thindi that was tantalisingly close to them but yet out of reach.As soon as Chandrasehar left, there was a mad scramble to get at the thindis.While this mad scramble was going on, the doorbell rang and who should come in but Chandrasekhar again !!!!!--- he had forgotten his hat and had come back to get it.

( To be continued)